Tribes: Ascend is in open beta. You can sign up, download it and play it right now. It's already good fun, but it's still a work in progress. There are plenty more maps and perks to be added before Hi-Rez consider the game complete. The latest patch has made a few of those additions already, adding a new team deathmatch map called 'Outskirts' and two new perks.

The first is Rage. Getting angry will boost your energy regeneration and offer you a 25% heal if you're standing next to your flag when an enemy snatches it, a good perk for defenders who have just been blown off the flag by a Pathfinder's spinfusor disk. The second one is a little more exotic. The Sonic Punch will send out a shockwave when you melee. This can push back enemy players and, importantly, dislodge a flag from an opponent's grasp. It'll be interesting to see how top Tribes players make use of this one.

The patch has also made a raft of balance changes that alter the way Mirv and Mortar launchers fire. Many bugs have been fixed, too, including one that would cause weapons to 'dry fire,' which is never ideal in a combat situation. Here are the patch notes in full, from the Hi-Rez site.

Major Highlights

Badges are now awarded as you achieve certain milestones inside of the game. Each badge has multiple ranks (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Obisidian). You earn bonus XP each time you rank up a badge. You may view available and earned badges, as well as accolades and general stats, through the PROFILE menu broken down by subsections. Note that this system is still a work in progress, and some items are not yet fully complete. In addition, some bugs and issues should be expected.

Rage is a defensive Perk that, fully unlocked, increases energy regeneration for a limited time and provides a 25% heal if nearby your flag when an enemy grabs it.

Sonic Punch, fully unlocked, creates a shock wave with each melee swing that pushes back nearby players, and can force a flag fumble.

Additional Items

Fixed many scenarios where weapons could 'dry fire.' This fix improves instances where the weapon would appear to fire but no projectile would spawn, improves instances where the weapon could falsely reload, and improves scenarios where a deployable would not properly deploy, even though it appears valid on the player's client.

Arena Gamemode

Arena now unlocks as a playable mode at Level 8.

Fixed issue where players would spawn as the Soldier class upon first joining an Arena Deathmatch.

Credit count resets after each new round in Arena Deathmatch (the total number of reported credits earned for the lifetime of the match is retained, however).

To better indicate a player is in a warm-up round, the game goes grayscale during this period.

The overhead caret for the last man standing on a team is now always visible to other players.

Players who are benched during the finale of a round will no longer AFK timeout if the finale lasts more than three minutes.

When a player runs out of respawns, the text next to the death counter now says, 'Out of Respawns' and when the timer expires it says, 'Fire to Spectate'

The distance from the reticule to see the health and nameplates of other players and objectives is more lenient, especially when zoomed.

CTF Temple Ruins has been removed from the public queue pending technical and design improvements.

CTF Bella Omega has been removed from the public queue pending design improvements.
vFixed many bugs on the Player and Team Summary Scenes

The 'Acquired' pop-up has been improved.

The HUD animations for accolades and badges has been improved.

Fixed a bug where a player could ski through an inventory station and be propelled out.

Fixed a bug where the player could get in a situation where they would not properly attach to a vehicle station.

Fixed the 'missing font' log spam.

Fixed a bug where you could click the 'Boost' button from the Player Summary even when that button is invisible.

Fixed issues where players were not being AFK kicked in situations where they were the only one in the match and at the initial team-select screen.

The in-match class quick select screen no longer overrides the post process effects for the map.

Added proper animations to the Heavy when driving or riding on a Grav Cycle.

Fixed a bug where ammo pickups were floating in the air or continuously bouncing.

Fixed an issue where bForceStaticTerrain stopped working in the previous patch.

Fixed an issue where users were losing their weapons when spawning a vehicle and then immediately using an inventory station.

Fixed an issue where players were able to call-in a Supply Drop on their own head.

Fixed an issue where turret holograms were not properly disappearing after using an inventory station.

Fixed an issue where sticky projectiles on the generator were not damaging nearby players.

Fixed an issue where users were able to stay perpetually hidden from turrets by rapidly enabling and disabling stealth.

Fixed an issue where the Soldier's Utility Pack was not functioning for many players.

Added improved collision to base turrets and base radar sensors.

Fixed an issue where motion sensors destroyed by enemies were not triggering.

Lava on Inferno TDM will now cause damage when touched, but currently will not show players on fire after contact.

Fixed an issue where players were able to get over the boundary wall on Inferno. Also fixed collision issues on the ceiling in the central tunnel.

Lava Arena has been refitted with a custom art set.

VGS and Team Announcer volume settings are now properly working.

Base Turrets and Base Radar Sensors now have new collision, this will make them easier to hit and repair.

Fixed an issue where 1P overlay effects on the weapon and arms would not be playing even when the effect was active, i.e. health regeneration, stealth, jammer, etc.

Fixed an issue where Shrikes were taking double or more damage from light turrets.

Fixed an issue where certain sounds were not stopping when the player died.

Fixed an issue where the Infiltrator's Stealth Spinfusor was not doing extra damage to armored.

Rank names have been adjusted to match new icons.

Hot Fixes in 0.1.811.0

Fixed a bug in which the turret rate of fire was inadvertently increased.

Fixed a bug in team joining that allowed for imbalanced team sizes in matches.

Fixed a bug that treated 'Kill Credit For â?¦ ' kills as a negative score on the scoreboard.

Known Issues

Lava pain volumes in Inferno TDM will not show any fire particle effects.

Roaming a map can occasionally lead to a crash. The fix is under investigation.

The new gray-scale effect that shows up during a warm-up round in Arena Deathmatch does not affect users with low video card settings.

Pathfinder's Light Assault Rifle allows for constant repeated bursts of fire in training areas if the player holds down the fire button. This issue will be fixed in a subsequent patch.